NZ Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell says many in the sector feel they've already had a good say. Photo / Mark Mitchell
NZ Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell says many in the sector feel they've already had a good say. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Some mental health services are calling for a little less talk and a little more action as the Government again puts its long-awaited plan to fix the sector back to the public.
The Government Budget in May included a $1.9 billion boost for the mental health and addiction programmes overfive years in what was a response to the largest inquiry into the sector in decades.
That inquiry held 400 meetings and heard 5200 submissions from organisations and members of the public.
It handed down a swathe of recommendations last December but the Government's response was pushed back several times, eventually to the Budget.
Today, Health Minister David Clark opened the first event of a two-week nationwide roadshow, going back to consultation with NGOs as the Government tries to figure out how exactly to spend about $455 million set aside for widening the reach of services to an extra 325,000 people.
It's what Clark calls the rubber-hits-the-road part of a five-year process, and more than 100 representatives from a variety of organisations turned out for the meeting in Wellington.
Among them was Sally Pitts-Brown, chief of community mental illness and addiction provider Pathways, who described it as a huge opportunity to get the plan right.
"I think that we now have to make sure that we, with integrity, put in practice the principles that came out of He Ara Oranga [the inquiry] and, by us being involved in some of the planning, we are going to do that in a really sensible way," she said.
But some in the sector say they'd like to see a bit more movement first.
"I think a lot of people in our sector feel like we had a pretty strong say to the inquiry," Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell said ahead of the meeting.
"A lot of people would prefer things getting done, the money getting spent, than having the roadshows."
Health Minister David Clark says the meetings are the start of the "rubber-meets-the-road" part of the policy. Photo / Mark Mitchell
While longer-term plans did need to be hammered out, the inquiry had given enough direction for some much-needed money to be spent now, he said.
"Maybe we don't need to add this stage," Bell said.
"Maybe there's another way to do this that can get action done a little more quickly and get money spent. There are services that are doing really good work, let's help that good work get going across the country."
Marion Blake, the chief of Platform - an umbrella organisation for mental health and addiction services, said the workshops would be a chance to get the community involved in coming up with the next, practical steps.
"I'd be hoping that roadshow is going to be more pragmatic," she said.
But she, too, agreed "action would be good" after years of waiting.
"We're starting in a pretty barren landscape ... Every moment we delay people's lives are being impacted," she said.
"And we'll get some stuff wrong and that's okay too. We've done bugger-all for so long that on one hand people are saying: 'A bit more time to get it right'. But I just think we have to get on and do some stuff."
Mental Health Foundation chief Shaun Robinson, meanwhile, welcomed the process and said it would see people with lived experiences, Māori and Pasifika being given a greater voice.
"A fundamental principle of the Mental Health Inquiry was that future service design was to be informed by partnership with people who use the services," he said.
Clark said the Government was already doing work but now needed to prepare the next stage.
Money from the Budget had already been set aside for increasing the workforce and supporting existing forms of care, while other projects had been implemented while the inquiry was underway, he said.
"We do have money to fund activities already underway, and the pilots that are already set up. We do have a picture of some models that are working," he said.
"But we're also going to need to scale up quite dramatically and we shouldn't under-estimate the significance of that task ... It is going to involve a whole new front-line workforce."
National Party mental health spokesman Matt Doocey said the roadshow showed the Government still didn't have its act together, despite canning $100m of mental health initiatives in Budget 2017.
"They're now coming up to two years in Government, they talked up mental health and raised huge expectations in Opposition ... and they're now having to go back to the public. It confirms they have no plan," he said.
In a statement, deputy director-general of mental health and addiction Robyn Shearer said the meetings would give officials a chance to meet with service providers to discuss timeframes.
"The ministry will explain the parameters for the funding that will support more people getting more services now and into the future," she said.
"We have heard through He Ara Oranga that the ministry needs to work more collaboratively with the sector - and this enables us the first step in doing this - and hear from the sector on how to ensure we bring forward new options for people as fast as we can."
